CARTAE TRIVMPHORVM

LVDVS RATIONIS MVNDI

These cards are an attempt to reproduce the look and feel
of fifteen-century woodblock-printed tarot cards, which were
called Triumph Cards at the time.

Most of the earliest surviving tarot decks were unique,
lavishly produced items made for the ruling families of the
great cities of northern Italy. These were handpainted using
the most expensive materials, and were probably intended as
art objects to glorify the families that commissioned them.
There were also mass-produced decks, intended for routine
game-playing use. These were printed from woodblocks on
layered paper, with color crudely added by fingertip or
stencil, and few have survived. Some, like the so-called
Gringonneur cards, were printed from woodblocks,
but then carefully painted by hand.

We dont know what the very first deck might have
looked like, but we might speculate that it was printed from
woodblocks in limited quantities, and colored by hand. Such
decks might have circulated among members of the royal
courts as the game of triumphs was first played, discussed,
and refined.

Cartae Triumphorum is thus my own fantasy of what the
very first tarot deck might have been like. I have tried to
keep all the details consistent with what is known about the
history of the cards, but I have also smuggled in my own
speculations where the historical record is
inconclusive.

I believe the tarot was invented to play an allegorical
game, one in which an ordinary deck of cards was extended to
include powers higher than kings. These
triumphs or trumps included such
powerful earthly figures as the Holy Roman Emperor and the
Pope, but also allegories of the great cosmic powers, such
as Love and Death. Because of its basic theme, the game
could not help but also be a commentary on the nature of the
cosmos and our place in it. It is a game that is
cosmographic, philosophical, and spiritual.

I made the designs on these cards by soft-block carving,
which gives a look similar to that of woodblock printing.
The backs are printed separately and then wrapped around the
card. This was a commonplace technique in ancient
card-making; it served to reinforce the cards and protect
the edges and corners, which were especially subject to
wear. Old cards had square corners, and of course were not
coated or laminated in any way.

I have colored these cards with Tombow markersnot a
very authentic method, but the best compromise between
accuracy and practicality I have found so far. Im
still experimenting with the coloring. The old printed decks
were generally colored with a limited palette of clear
colors, with no shading or blending. Note that these cards
are not waterproof, and may also discolor if exposed to
strong light.

I first learned to carve when I started this deck in the
autumn of 1999. My technique improved as I learned, and
Im no longer happy with the earliest designs (the ace
of batons and the back design). The most recent ones (such
as Justice and The Sun) are closer to the look I want for
the deck.

Tom Tadfor Little

September 2000

Back Design. The crisscross border is
folded around to the front of the card, so only
appears half as wide on a finished card as it does
in this scan. The design shows a typical medieval
cosmographic scheme, with the four elements at the
bottom, the celestial spheres in the middle, and
Heaven at top.

Ace of Batons * As di Bastoni

The Latin suits of batons, cups,
swords, and coins were features of ordinary playing
cards when the first appeared in Europe in the 14th
century. The tarot deck simply continued these
standard symbols, which are still found in Italian
and Spanish playing cards today.

Designs for the ace of batons (and the ace of
swords) showing it being presented by a divine hand
emerging from a cloud are also quite ancient. The
crown is also a common feature.

Banners displaying mottoes or sayings were also
widespread, and I have chosen the Latin word
vis, meaning force or will, to express
the symbolism of the card. A baton or rod is a
symbol of authority and personal power.

Love * LAmore

The card known to modern tarot users as
The Lovers was originally entitled
simply Love. As such, it represents
love as a force in human life. In Petrarchs
poem I Trionfi, love conquers all mortals,
including the wise and powerful. The placement of
this card in most traditional orderings
(immediately following the Pope as the highest
human authority) reinforces this idea.

Cupid or Eros hovers above the young couple,
arrow poised. Unlike the Tarot de Marseille and
other later tarot designs, this image does not show
a young man choosing between two women. Instead,
this design (liberally adapted from the Cary-Yale
Visconti deck, probably dating from before 1450),
emphasizes the union between the two people,
suggesting a betrothal or marriage ceremony.

3 Swords * 3 Spadi

In old playing cards, swords are usually drawn
as curved. Cards originally came to Europe from the
Islamic world, which was of course known for its
curving scimitars. The design also served a
practical function, making swords easy to
distinguish from batons at a glance. (Early cards
had no corner indices to identify them.)

When an odd number of swords is present, the
final one is often drawn straight, piercing the
design created by the curved pairs. Symbolically,
this suggests a decisive thrust that breaks a
stalemate. The three of swords might thus signify a
decisive, perhaps aggressive or painful, resolution
to a dilemma.

The Sun * Il Sole

All manner of different designs were used for
the Sun card in early tarot decks. The two children
of the Tarot de Marseille is an astrological
reference, often used to signify the Sun and its
house. Other decks show the Sun being carried
across the sky, a courting couple, Alexander and
Diogenes, or simply a stylized sun symbol. It is
interesting that almost all of these designs
feature two human figures in some way.

Rather than choosing among these different early
designs, I used an entirely different image, but
one that echoes many of the others. The design is
based on a sixteenth-century model with alchemical
overtones. The aged sun king and the young boy
represent the cycle of age, death, and rebirth.

The Sun is also the cosmic manifestation of the
masculine principle, just as the Moon manifests the
feminine. As a very high ranking card, the Sun
resides in the upper echelons of the powers of the
cosmos.

2 Batons * 2 Bastoni

When playing cards entered Europe from Islam,
the suits were coins, cups, swords, and polo
sticks. The latter were unfamiliar to Europeans,
who interpreted them as batons. In Italy, the
batons were usually depicted as smooth rods with
decorated ends. In Spain and Portugal, they became
rough cudgels.

Two is the number of choice, balance, contrast,
and complementation. Taking batons as a symbol of
personal authority, the 2 crossed batons on the
card may be interpreted as conflicting intentions,
a stalemate, or a collaboration between equally
strong-willed individuals. It may also represent a
tentative balance between two aspects of ones
personal identity.

9 Batons * 9 Bastoni

When a large number of suit symbols are depicted
on a card, the ingenuity of the designer is pressed
to its limits. Without corner indices, the user of
the cards must be able to identify the suit symbol
and numerical rank from a glance at the card face.
Batons were conventionally arrayed as a symmetrical
criss-cross lattice (woven in a way that would be
impossible for actual rods).

For odd numbers, the extra baton was inserted
vertically through the lattice. This design
suggests a symbolic interpretation. The eight
batons form a dense network, almost a cage or
fence, a barrier to motion and change. The ninth
baton seems desperate to break out of the pattern
it is woven into. The card can thus be taken to
represent a heroic effort against powerful,
unrelenting resistance.

Justice * La Justicia

Justice is one of the cardinal virtues of
antiquity that is represented in the tarot. (The
other two are Fortitude and Temperance; Prudence is
mysteriously absent.) Justice is personified as a
female figure with sword and scales, still
recognizable to us today as a symbol of
jurisprudence. In this design, as in a number of
old decks, she is shown with a halo.

Justice is the virtue that presides over the
interactions between people in society. Justice
requires fairness, a perfect balance between
ones own wants and those of others. She finds
the balance between selfishness and self-denial
(which appear in the tarot as the Chariot and Love,
respectively). Although justice is the patron of
public law, she also presides over private personal
conduct.

The Fool * Il Matto

The Fool stands alone; neither a trump card nor
a suit card, but an outsider. In the game of
triumphs, the Fool can be played at any time as an
excuse, and though it cannot take any
other cards, neither can it be taken, so the player
retains the large point value assigned to the
card.

As in the game, so also in life and art, the
Fool is an outsider, perhaps homeless and wretched,
perhaps mad, perhaps a vagabond entertainer
beholden to no one. The design of this card is a
blending of three early Fool cards: the
Visconti-Sforza, the Tarocchi del Mantegna, and the
early Tarot de Marseille. The feathers in his hair
symbolize folly. The dog nipping at his leg
suggests the Fools lowly station, as does his
ragged tunic.

The Fool embodies many paradoxes:
naïveté and wit, folly and wisdom,
debasement and holiness. His simplicity exempts him
from all judgment and from all dictates of
custom.

2 Coins * 2 Denari

The two of coins, especially in decks of the
Marseilles family, often bears a scroll giving the
name of the cardmaker, perhaps with place and date
as well. (One remarkable early example of this
practice is a card found at the Sforza castle,
plainly date 1499.)

The decision to preserve this old custom
presented an interesting design challenge, as the
Cartae Triumphorum is a modern creation intended to
give the illusion of antiquity. I opted for a Latin
motto, factae in sancta fide,
signifying made in Santa Fe, but which
can also be read made in holy faith, a
statement that would not be entirely out of place
on a 15th-century Italian card.

Coins are the suit of wealth, good fortune, and
the merchant class. With 2 being the number of
balance and alternatives, the 2 of coins may
naturally suggest a financial crossroads or a
juggling of commitments.

8 Swords * 8 Spadi

The high-numbered cards of batons and swords are
geometrically complex and difficult to design so
that the suit symbols are pleasingly arranged but
still easily counted. The curved swords, unlike the
straight batons, intersect in two places, creating
two diamond-shaped lattices in the design.

Symbolically, swords obviously represent
violence and conflict, but also elitism,
sophistication, nobility, and knightly discipline
and etiquette. Hence swords cards are often cards
of conflict concealed behind politics or
professionalism.

The eight of swords depicts a perfect impasse or
stalemate between heavily armed parties or
opinions. The swords make a completely impenetrable
cage; the floral emblem in the center seems quite
helpless and almost superfluous.

Death * Il Morte

Even people who know nothing else about tarot
know this card, which is presumed to foretell
literal death. Fears and superstitions surrounding
the card apparently go back a long wayeven
when titles began to be printed on the cards with
the early Tarot de Marseille decks, Death was left
untitled. In all the variant orderings of the tarot
trumps, Death was without exception given the
number 13.

Ironically, though, when the cards first
appeared in the early 15th century, the skeletal
figure of Death probably did not stand out so much.
Europe had suffered through a century of the Black
Death, and imagery of the danse macabre, in which
the skeleton is seen cavorting indiscriminately
with paupers, kings, and clergy, was ubiquitous. In
Florence, an elaborate Triumph of Death
was staged annually in the city center. Death was
thus a natural subject for the series of triumphs,
vanquishing the lower cards depicting lifes
aspirations, but itself subject to the greater
cosmic powers, such as the Devil, celestial lights,
and God.